XXVII
Tulola’s celebrations were almost spent, the guests along with them. They’d drunk too much, eaten too much, and were starting to bounce off the pain barrier. Corbulo had not been missed, neither had Claudia or Orbilio and their haggard faces, when they burst into the room, seemed little different from the others’.
‘Oi, oi, hold on a minute.’ The horse-breaker was amused rather than angry when Orbilio grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shoved the scrap of fabric in his face. ‘Why should I want to see Corbulo hanging like game from a meat hook?’
‘Then what happened to the robe?’ Orbilio released Barea the way a terrier lets go an ankle. ‘You aren’t wearing it.’
‘Same reason, I suppose, that you’re out of costume,’ Barea replied. ‘Glad to be shot of it. Damned women’s clothes, if you ask me. Don’t know why Pallas kept the bloody thing.’
‘So it was yours!’ Timoleon turned to face the fat man. ‘Now why aren’t I surprised.’ It was an insult, rather than a question.
‘That garment was presented to me by a Phoenician nobleman with more class in his little finger than you’ve got in your whole body, you blowsy pig-sticker.’
The mood was all wrong, Claudia thought. Mockery? Indifference? And then she realized. They were frightened. All of them. She recalled the expression on Alis’ face when the news broke, it was that of a stag whose antlers had been caught in the huntsman’s net. They had all felt the shockwaves, but only she had been too slow to cover up, and suddenly Claudia was reminded of a pack of lionesses, each moving as one.
She had a horrible feeling that Orbilio, however hard he searched, would never find that missing tunic, because the Pictors had closed ranks. Fear had formed a bond that friendship never could.
Claudia thought of Corbulo, refusing to be fussed and insisting that, honestly, a good night’s sleep was all that he needed, he was fine. Any single person here in this room tonight, she reflected miserably, could have taken that tunic as a disguise and followed the trainer.
She looked around, and shivered. Any single person here in this room tonight could be the killer.
*
Oh-so-silently suspicion stalked the Villa Pictor, insinuating itself into the outbuildings, the fields, the gardens and the orchards. It masqueraded as shadows, as creaks, as gusts of wind, and coiled its way into every crevice of every mind. The clamour of the kitchens was reduced to terse whispers, plates rattled in nervous hands, field workers looked over their shoulders and Junius camped beneath his mistress’s window. In the atrium the water-clock dripped with exasperating slowness, the sunshine that flooded the marble took for ever to creep across the floor. In the courtyard, grown men jumped at the lovebird’s squawks and avoided the shadows of the mythical beasts. When the elephant trumpeted, a flowerpot smashed to smithereens in the gardener’s hands. Three of the slaves, a man and his daughters, tried to decamp under cover of darkness, but Macer had left eight of his men as contingency, four north and four south, two on and two off.
At the same time the runaways were marched back to their barracks, Taranis also slipped quietly into his own room, unshouldered his bulging rucksack and unleashed a bitter Celtish curse.
Like the build-up to a storm, the atmosphere was oppressive, torrid. People sat with their backs to the walls and pretended they were hung over from the night before-it explained the beads of sweat on their foreheads, the gooseflesh down their arms, the nausea in the pits of their stomachs.
No one dared voice the fact that they were prisoners on the estate.
No one dared whisper that trust was a thing of the past.
Only Orbilio threw caution to the wind as he went about his investigations, and his attitude puzzled Claudia greatly. There was a fanaticism about him now, and instinct told her it was Marcus who had overturned his own furniture.
Somewhere along the line, she thought, this has got personal.
Meanwhile, Corbulo appeared in part to be the weathervane for the family’s emotional wellbeing, for it was upon Corbulo that hopes were silently, secretly, collectively pinned. Here was the man who had brought Sergius to the pinnacle of success finding the road to recovery difficult-and it had frightened them. Always they had seen Corbulo as strong and reliable and while physically he seemed mended, his movements were wooden, his thoughts remained locked in his head. When Corbulo got better, everyone would get better. Or so they told themselves…
Come Saturday night, when the moon had reached half and the rest of the Empire rejoiced at the equinox in full voice, the relatives and guests of Sergius Pictor were gathered round his dining table, leaning on their elbows and playing with their food in abject silence. The little girl who strummed the lyre might just as well have not bothered.
‘Look at us.’ Sergius drove the point of his knife into the tabletop as the pork and stuffed marrows were cleared away virtually untouched. ‘You’d think we were facing mass execution.’
He was right. No appetites, no colour, no feelings even. Just a numbness, in both body and spirit. Passing time until Something Else Happened.
More eyes were watching the blade quivering in the woodwork than the irritation which washed over Sergius’ face. ‘There’s a madman on the loose, I can’t deny it,’ he snapped. ‘But I’m buggered if he’s going to take us down with him.’
Too late, thought Claudia. On the walls, Ganymede was swept off to his new job on Mount Olympus and he was the lucky one. He got away.
‘Won’t anyone answer me? Are we to sit in silence for the rest of our lives?’
‘You think we sing and tell jokes, yes, while the killer pick us off one by one?’ The lines in the Celt’s face became trenches, and the girl on the lyre hit two duff notes in succession.
‘That’s why Taranis wears long pants,’ Timoleon growled in something close to his normal manner. ‘He’s always wetting them.’
‘Tch!’ The Celt made a gesture that none of them had seen before but they all recognized as vulgar. The gladiator curled his lip in disdain.
But small though the squabble was, the spell had been broken. Pallas made a lunge for the prawn rissoles before they were cleared from the table, perhaps not with his usual vigour, but he hung on to them none the less.
‘What exactly do you have in mind?’ Orbilio asked, and Claudia was surprised that, although he addressed the question to Sergius, his eyes flashed dark on Tulola.
Sergius began to sniff victory. ‘At this very moment,’ he said, ‘half of Rome is comprehensively pissed and the other half’s well on the way. What say we forget this maniac and celebrate ourselves? Tomorrow?’
‘I think that’s a wonderful idea,’ gushed Alis.
‘Me too.’ Euphemia speared a scallop with the same knife she’d drawn on Claudia. ‘I’m fed up seeing your miserable faces all the time.’
Hark who’s talking, thought Claudia, ‘Celebrate how?’ she asked.
Sergius wiggled his blade out of the tabletop and called for the fruit. ‘I rather thought an outing to the springs would be nice.’
‘I d-don’t think we should leave-’
‘Rubbish, sweetie.’ Tulola waved aside the Tribune’s protests. ‘It’s a brilliant idea. This hanging around is driving us demented, even you, Salvian, young as you are.’ She leaned over and tickled him under the chin until he turned red as a turkey cock.
‘M-my uncle-’ he spluttered.
But Sergius was not a man to be put off the scent. ‘Come along, you lot, what do you say?’
Careful glances were exchanged, which in turn became conspiratorial glances until finally they became smug, triumphant glances.
And at least ten hands shot up.
*
In Rome, Senator Quintilian bade farewell to the last of his callers and settled back contentedly, running his hands over the carved boar’s head that comprised the arm of his chair. This was the time of day he liked best, when the long, noisy line of clients and lobbyists had finally trickled away, leaving behind their dreary petitions, most of which he’d burn later. Dismissing his scribe, he poured himself a large glass of tansy wine and closed his eyes. Skilful time management ensured him one hour-one single, solitary, precious hour-before different calls were made upon his person, usually generated by that ambitious wife of his, but just as important, nevertheless.